Multimedia+Journalism+Fine Art Photography

Profile

The Agony and Ecstacy of Filipino Diaspora. New York. 2015. By Ruston Banal

Ruston Banal is a visual ethnographer and multimedia artist from Betis, Pampanga. He is currently a visual effects artist of the prestigious Lucie Awards (The Oscars of Photography) in New York and heads the International Photography Awards Philippines. Aside from several collaborations with international photographers, he also worked as a cinematographer for several award-winning indie-films like Manenaya (Waiting), a Kapampangan film that won the jury-prize in the 2012 Cinemalaya. He conceptualized and helped create the film entitled Dukit (woodcarved) directed by Armando Lao. He is a 3-time Ani ng Dangal Awardee of the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts and has won international awards for his visual narrative entitled “Kuraldal”.

Ruston Banal is a top graduate at the University of the Philippines, Diliman and attended several special classes on photography, multimedia and visual culture in London and New York.

Currently, he is under a special research grant program of the Department of Communication at the Far Eastern University focusing on the representations of reality in photojournalism.

He is now managing the Asia office of International Photography Awards in San Fernando, Pampanga.